First, I’m thrilled to announce that Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti has now raised over $35,000 for the Haitian People’s Support Project!  Wow!

Second, you have another chance to help out and get some great music for your family.  Todd McHatton is guest DJing this week on Spare the Rock and he’s offered to donate every penny he gets from digital sales of his new record this week to the Haitian People’s Support Project.  Go get it at his BandCamp page and buy it for any amount — and all of it will go help HPSP!  That’s awesome.

(And the CD is really good, too!)

I occasionally forget that the Many Hands CD has had real impact, not just in funds raised for relief, but also for listeners. Then I get an e-mail like this (posted with permission):

Hello,

I’m sitting on a hammock listening to Many Hands, watching the twilight sky darken, about to make my fifth trip to Haiti, overwhelmed once again by the promise and challenge ahead of me as I head to the place of greatest need.

I work with teachers and children all over the country, bringing laptops and creativity and hope and freedom of a sort.  This trip I’ll be reaching another hundred, most of them in Cité Soleil.  I’ll also be glad-handing a bunch of so-serious types, all with power to help so many more, and most who completely miss the point … that we need to free hearts, free minds … that it’s about children being children, that they need a childhood, they need a friend.

Please pass the word to the artists that they’ve given strength to at least one steely-surfaced marshmellow man spending way too much time & money for the kids of Haiti, who listens to the songs along with his 5 year old daughter, over and over and over.

And that one beautiful twilight night in a moment of considerable doubt, Frances England made me cry the shaking kind of sob with the simplicity and truth of “What Friends Are For.”   I wish I could airdrop your CD all across Haiti so the kids there could hear what the kids here are jamming out to in the backseat on the way to their happy, healthy home.  Those kids and these kids . . . there aren’t words.

Anyway, thanks again.

Tim

—

Timothy Falconer
Waveplace Foundation

As you can guess from his signature lines, Tim works with the Waveplace Foundation; he also sent along a link to a video that describes some of their innovative work in Haiti.  Check it out:

And here’s Frances (with Elizabeth Mitchell and Daniel Littleton helping out) doing the song he mentions:

We had a wonderful time on Sunday afternoon at the Pines.  Perfect weather, a lovely venue, great help, and, above all, terrific performances.

You can find photos from the day at Josh Stearns’s Flickr Set, Tom Adams’s Facebook album, and my Facebook album.  I’ve set up a YouTube playlist (embedded below) with the videos I’ve posted and a montage Tom Adams (of Reelife Productions) put together; I’ll add more videos to that if I come across them.  You can also go to my YouTube channel to see my videos separately.  The videos include Dan Zanes and Elizabeth Mitchell & Family, all performing together for the first time in public (joined by a bunch of other folks, including Tony Vacca, Rani Arbo, Scott Kessel, and others!).

I don’t know the precise numbers yet, but I can say safely that we raised thousands of dollars.  Thanks to all of you and to all of our amazing sponsors for the support!

And, as I noticed late in the day, the day of this event marked exactly six months out from Meltdown 2011!

Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti was officially nationally released yesterday!  You can get it at fine record stores, Amazon, or iTunes.  If your local store doesn’t carry it, tell them they can get it from E1 or any one-stop.  And in September, it’ll be in every Whole Foods Market.

I’m not going to try to link to all of the press it’s been getting (if you like us on Facebook, you’ll see links there), but how about a little sampler:

“Simply put, Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti is the year’s best family music compilation and one of the year’s best kids music CDs, period. Buy two: one for your friend and one for your own family. Many families will thank you. Definitely recommended.” – Stefan Shepherd, Zooglobble.com

“Artfully assembled and brimming with joy, Many Hands lives up to its title with noteworthy performances from many of the finest names in family music. Great music, worthy cause — what more could you ask for?” – Jeff Giles, Popdose.com

“Many Hands: Family Music from Haiti is, for many reasons, the most intriguing and audacious release in the family music world this year, bar none.” –Zooglobble.com

“A We are the World for the sandbox set. ” – UrbanBaby.com

“Many Hands is an instant family heirloom of a CD, worthy of being passed on to future generations. It’s also a lovely slice of the children’s music world in 2010, comprehensive in it’s scope yet tight-knit at the same time – heck, that sounds like the kindie scene itself! Consider purchasing Many Hands when it comes out this August. I’m pretty certain that many, if not all, of the songs will delight you and your kiddos.” –Outwiththekids.com

“Plenty of homerun tunes.”   James Heflin, Valley Advocate

If you’ve got satellite radio (psst: terrestrial radio is still pretty great), you can hear what I think will be a pretty amazing in-studio from Dog on Fleas, Uncle Rock, Grenadilla, and Recess Monkey this weekend.

If I may be so bold to suggest it, this CD would be a great Christmas or other holiday gift for, well, everyone you know.  Why not get all your gifts taken care of right now?

The CD is now available at A Child’s Garden as well as at Cup & Top and Turn It Up.  Tuesday, it is available everywhere!  (Pre-order now from Amazon if you don’t have a local record store to buy it from.)  I don’t know if I’ve made it clear before, but it will be available on iTunes as well.

Tickets for the Pines show are available (with no service charge) at Turn It Up and at the Toy Box.  You can also buy them online with a pretty reasonable service charge of just 99 cents per ticket at Brown Paper Tickets.

We have some great sponsors already lined up for the show here.  If you’re interested, contact me soon.